It is well known that auscultation training is important to medical education. Auscultation is the act of listening to sounds from the heart, lungs, or other body parts typically with a stethoscope, as a part of medical diagnosis. During auscultation training, standardized patients are often used as they provide unsurpassed realism when training for real patient encounters. Generally speaking, standardized patients are actors trained to mimic a variety of symptoms, signs, psychiatric conditions, and the like. Unfortunately, there is a limited scope on what standardized patients can provide on physical examination, as most standardized patients do not have abnormal physical findings. This problem is especially evident when the standardized patient is attempting to simulate pathologies involving distinct findings, such as heart murmurs, abnormal lung, or abnormal abdominal sounds.
Systems that improve upon auscultation training are well known. For example, stethoscope-shaped devices exist having an embedded speaker which plays pre-recorded digital audio files at the command of an instructor observing the location of the stethoscope-shaped device with respect to a simulated patient. In some instances, the speaker may emit sound using a remote control. This does not allow a trainee, e.g., a medical student, to utilize his or her own personal stethoscope. Moreover, the instructor must monitor the location of the stethoscope and control the sound at the appropriate time, as there is no tracking system provided to perform such monitoring.
In another example, the simulated stethoscope plays pre-recorded digital sounds and the stethoscope head includes an embedded Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag reader. The simulated patient has RFID tags placed in the physical location in which the trainee is intended to auscultate. Unfortunately, the RFID tags placed upon the simulated patient take away from the realism of the training. In addition, the RFID tags inform the trainee exactly where to place the stethoscope's head, which defeats a major part of the evaluation and teaching objectives of providing a real life scenario.
Another known auscultation training system requires the simulation patient to wear a garment having one or more markings, e.g., RFID tags. When performing auscultation training, a sound-generating device is attached to the stethoscope diaphragm. As the sound-generating device hovers over a sensor embedded in the garment at the location of the marking, the sound-generating device plays an appropriate physiological sound. Obviously, the realism of the scenario is reduced because the markings show the trainee exactly where to place the stethoscope diaphragm and sound-generating device. Moreover, the simulated patient is forced to wear a garment that may be uncomfortable and which must be tailored to fit the simulated patient.
Other known auscultation training systems include a specialized stethoscope, an infrared camera for stethoscope location tracking, and a prompt screen for generating breathing synchronization. In use, a single infrared light-emitting diode located on top of the stethoscope head is tracked by a static infrared camera, which is connected to a main computer system. Unfortunately, stethoscope location tracking will not work if the trainee steps into the camera's line-of-sight or if the stethoscope is not facing the infrared camera. In order to generate breathing synchronization, the standardized patient paces his or her breathing cycle to mirror the signal shown on a prompt screen connected to a main computer system. For proper performance of breathing synchronization, the simulated patient must be able to view the prompt screen and therefore must remain facing the screen during examination. Obviously, such restrictions would greatly interfere with common physical examination practices taught to medical professionals. In addition, these systems may be expensive to implement and maintain.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.